WWII pacific

[benstandby]

I played as Japan against my friend as the USA in a simultaneus moves LAN game of this conquest. It was freakin' intense!! I won on a VP win with like 15 turns left. He had just developed nukes, built a few, and was about to use them on my fleet when the Victory thing popped up! It was beautiful.

I did something very unorthodox on the first turn. I backed off of Hawaii. I concentrated my fleet on wake island- which I pounded into the ground. I did the same to midway and then I moved my carrier fleet (5 carriers, at least 6 BB, 8 CA, 12 DD, and a few transports) south and supported a campaign to secure all the Victory Points I could get in the next few turns. I focused these attacks on Indonesia, New Guinea, and the Phillipines.

I left all my subs up near Hilo and managed to take out 2-3 DD and a CA AND at least two carriers before he killed off the last sub. It kept him at bay for a long time.

I understand the problems with Manila. It was 1943 before I took it (at the cost of the city to the north of it), and the guy I played against moved massive numbers of MG and aircraft into it. 4 Marines from my carrier fleet made short work of it when I finally commited.

After my carrier fleet helped secure Manila, I figured I had better go see how goes the naval war with the US. My friend had been stock-piling air power in Hilo, Wake, and Pearl waiting for me to show up for about 20 turns while he built a navy that he thought he could take mine with. I had been getting pounded at the port directly south of Wake, and I had pulled out all of my air power to help hold off the chinese who had been boosted by American research (my friend was handing out techs, just to hurt me).

I moved my carrier fleet into position, and started doing recon missions to find his fleet. I got lucky and got the first strike- BEFORE he could get his fighters on air-superiority!!! I sunk a few ships before he started to shoot down my aircraft. Then I deployed the secret weapon: my 8 freshly built jet fighters. These made short work of his fighters and allowed my zeros and remaining bombers to cut his fleet to shreds. He retreated back behind Hilo, and I backed off again.

I had just repaired my BBs and CVs and replaced the air power on the CVs when I moved back toward Wake to finally confront and destroy the US fleet for good. I had just begun to engage, when the game ended with a VP victory for me.

It really was the last dying breath of my empire- as China, Britain, and the Dutch were all taking back their posessions. I had no rubber (freakin' enemy guerrillas chopped it up!!), and the chinese tank hordes were becoming unstoppable.

 

[alpha wolf 64]

You are so lucky to have a human player to play against

 

[Colonel Kraken]

I've played as the US and now as the Japs. The one thing that is really wrong with the scenario is airlift. This should be completely disabled for the scenario. It is completely unrealistic and makes allies way too strong.

I'm an old-time wargamer and have played many a "war in the Pacific" type games. Another thing I don't like about this scenario is how weak they make the Japanese infantry and how strong they make the Chinese. The Chinese did not have a chance to stand toe-to-toe with Jap divisions, save a couple well equiped ones in the Rangoon area. The Chinese are too strong in attack/defense strength in this game. The Japanese infantry are too weak on defense and do not reflect their actual abilites.

Also, there are too many infantry units in the Dutch East Indies and all those islands. There was no where near that kind of strength in that area. What units there were, were very weak and ill-equipped. I haven't looked into, but I'm sure the air units in this area in the game are too strong and numerous as well.

One thing I do find accurate is the Japanes woeful inadequacy of infantry.

I do like this scenario, but it does have some things I'm going to have to change. I'll have to look into it.

--CK

 

[alpha wolf 64]

I already started modding it after winning 3 times each as America and the Japanese. I removed all airports except on a few isolated islands which make them strategically important. I then put a couple of airfields in the US with no roads and 1 outside of Tokyo. This also makes sure that new air units wouldnt be vets. I gave an extra HP to vets and elites to give them a bigger advantage. I took away combat engineers from everyone but the US and Japanese. And only the Americans can build heavy tanks which require transports to move. I also added every CA/BB/CVL that was around in January 42. I was really upset that the original version didnt have the Yamato, or a few other ships commissioned within a month of the attack on PH. This alone has added tons of fun because there are numerous ships everywhere that can't be taken out on turn one so the naval battles are numerous and no longer one sided. I'm playing as the Japanese and the game has already lasted longer than any of the non modded games, altho I still have the upper hand. Another important mod is to get rid of so many island towns. Most islands were important only because they possessed an airfield so I turned Wake, Midway, Iwo, and a few others into single tile airfield. They can now only be taken by marines and altho you can airlift many units into them, you cant get them out quickly. Plus now damaged ships need to find an actual town to get repairs. I also lowered air ranges slightly to encourage closer combat, and transports were way to fast unmodded. S/B not 6. I cant wait to get later in the game when faster CV and BB come into play.
I too feel the ANZAC and Dutch are over stated but I haven't had time yet to research actual strengths, but I'm leaning towards them being 4/4/1, and all green. The early allied units were woefully overmatched and that doesnt hold true when ANZACs are 7/7/1.

 

[MarineCorps]

I modded it myself to make it a little more fun and true. I put the jet fighter at two movement points, had light tanls upgrade to medium tanks, fighters upgrade to jet fighters, bombers upgrade to heavy bomobers, ships have blitz attack, and Marines have a movement point of two with blitz .

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

had light tanls upgrade to medium tanks

Why would you want to remove the only move 3 unit from the game? If you play China, you'll notice how much the Medium Tank tech then will weaken the Japanese attacks, since they'll never reach a city before your Artillery can take them out...but a Japanese Light Armor Army, now that is frightening!

(This was subject of discussion during the beta, and I absolutely prefer the current way).

But of course, feel free to change whatever you want

 

[Evie]

We all have noted problems with the scenario. Here is a list of them with my ideas on how best to fix them with just changing numbers or placing new units on the map. The general idea being to come up with an "unofficial" standard set-up for the scenario, which we feel works better than the present one.

Problem #1 : Allied infantry (Anzac, etc) in the south-east is too strong.

Proposed Solution : Replace then with green infantry (the regular infantry unit) in the south-east. Keep Australia, Hawaii and the US held by GIs/ANZAC. Failing that, at least make them green.

Problem #2 : Airport are way too much of an advantage early on for the Allied.

Proposed Solution : Make most units un-airliftable. The reason why this solution should be prefered to the "no airport" solution is simply that paratroopers become worthless without airports (as I personally verified last night - it was frustrating having all those paras at Palau doing nothing because they couldn't drop anymore).

Problem #3 : Gold-rushing allows cities to be reinforced far too easily - having, say, Wake produce a MG Batallion in one turn is just ludicrous. OTOH without gold rushing offensive would bog down due to lack of "Garrison" units to leave behind.

Proposed Solution : Increase dramatically the cost of gold-rushing units. Draft should be, in this scenario, the prefered method of getting units fast. And warships (or planes) should take a long time to build.

4)China is way too strong and far too agressive in comparison with how it really acted.

Proposed Solution : Weakening their units (making them Green) is a start. However, what's really lacking no matter which way you come at it is the Kuomintang/Communists division. The only "Easy" way to fix that is to slap a buttload of barbarian infantry and guerilla on the map and label them part of a "communist" faction, then make sure nobody has any combat bonus against barbarians (ie, no non-obsolete great walls). Making WWII-era communists into the barbarians isn't exactly fair (they weren't much better nor worse than the KMT in regard to WWII stance), but unfortunately we're trying to find fixes that do NOT involve editing text files or adding units - or for that matter adding civs - here, so barbarians they have to be.

I would also remove China from the list of playable factions.

If you have any other problems or solutions to suggest, feel free to do so :-D

 

[MarineCorps]

Originally posted by Doc Tsiolkovski


Why would you want to remove the only move 3 unit from the game? If you play China, you'll notice how much the Medium Tank tech then will weaken the Japanese attacks, since they'll never reach a city before your Artillery can take them out...but a Japanese Light Armor Army, now that is frightening!

(This was subject of discussion during the beta, and I absolutely prefer the current way).

But of course, feel free to change whatever you want

oops hehe, forgot to mention that I increased the movement stats for the medium tank by one.

 

[Blitz_1]

Another thing wrong with this is that all the already captured Chinese and Korean cities should be rebelling against the Japanese since the start of the scenario.

 

[Evie]

Not all that much, no. There were anti-Japan movement in Korea, but they were mostly under control for the Japanesse - certainly not enough to justify any claim that the cities should be in civil disorder. Same goes for Manchuria.

China, perhaps more, but that's not possible with the current system anyway, and with the Chinesse guerilla running around, it works well enough - the Japanesse maintained a pretty solid control on most of the cities anyway.

 

[Warspite2]

Originally posted by alpha wolf 64
Guam is easy to hold, but it may be considered cheating. The game actually starts with your turn. None of the units can move, but you can still draft from the US cities over 6. Then airlift those grean GIs to Guam. You'll most likely lose a few of them, but the Japanese dont have enough marines to take them all out. Next turn, drop in the MGs from California, and Guam is almost impregnable. If you change the output from Manila and Davao to worker, and rush buy at Davao, you can build airfields at both places on your first real turn and reinforce those if they have survived. I hold Davao about 50% of the time, and never lose Guam or Manila. Send your lone transport across the ocean and airlift in marines to invade anywhere in China just to take pressure off the Chinese.

Side note on when playing the Japanese, has anyone else noticed that the American AI loads up Hilo with tons of fighters but leaves Pearl almost defenseless? I made the mistake once of starting to bomb Hilo and the first 5 of my planes was intercepted, so I abandoned the air strike. I diverted my transports headed towards Pearl to Hilo and captured it. 18 fighters had been based there, but no bombers to attack my fleet, and apparently all the fighters were flying CAP over Hilo.

Great ideas! I would not say it is cheating. Although you can't move the first turn, there are still other things you can do. Historically though, you should just end the first turn as USA and not do anything. This is because it was after Pearl Harbor when USA was brought into war. So until after that attack the USA would not have been alerted and reinforced Guam or the Philippines. An easy fix for this is to just make Japan the first player to move.

 

[Warspite2]

Originally posted by alpha wolf 64
I already started modding it after winning 3 times each as America and the Japanese. I removed all airports except on a few isolated islands which make them strategically important. I then put a couple of airfields in the US with no roads and 1 outside of Tokyo. This also makes sure that new air units wouldnt be vets. I gave an extra HP to vets and elites to give them a bigger advantage. I took away combat engineers from everyone but the US and Japanese. And only the Americans can build heavy tanks which require transports to move. I also added every CA/BB/CVL that was around in January 42. I was really upset that the original version didnt have the Yamato, or a few other ships commissioned within a month of the attack on PH. This alone has added tons of fun because there are numerous ships everywhere that can't be taken out on turn one so the naval battles are numerous and no longer one sided. I'm playing as the Japanese and the game has already lasted longer than any of the non modded games, altho I still have the upper hand. Another important mod is to get rid of so many island towns. Most islands were important only because they possessed an airfield so I turned Wake, Midway, Iwo, and a few others into single tile airfield. They can now only be taken by marines and altho you can airlift many units into them, you cant get them out quickly. Plus now damaged ships need to find an actual town to get repairs. I also lowered air ranges slightly to encourage closer combat, and transports were way to fast unmodded. S/B not 6. I cant wait to get later in the game when faster CV and BB come into play.
I too feel the ANZAC and Dutch are over stated but I haven't had time yet to research actual strengths, but I'm leaning towards them being 4/4/1, and all green. The early allied units were woefully overmatched and that doesnt hold true when ANZACs are 7/7/1.

I like how you say you have modded it, those are really good changes. Perhaps you can upload your modded version? I am also modding it. Here are some of what I have modded so far...

- Added in Light Cruisers (CLs) (a10, d8, m7, c180) and gave Japan some additional CLs and DDs that start docked in their homeland. I also looked up names of Japanese ships online and gave them real names.

- Increased cost of all Heavy Cruisers to 220 and Carriers to 300.

- I am going to mod in Light Carriers (CVLs) (a1, d5, m5) for both US and Japan. These will cost 250 and carry only 2 aircraft. In addition I am going to give all these CVLs the graphic the Japanese carriers currently use, they can represent a CVL pretty good. Then I am going to change the regular carriers (CVs) and give them all the same graphic as the Allied carriers.

- I am also considering having CAs upgrade to CVLs. Since many CVLs were converted cruisers. Not sure if this would be a good change or not or if I am even going to do it

When I finish my modding it I will upload my version if I think its good. Interesting to see others are modding this one too.

@benstandby - nice write up about your MP game!

 

[Colonel Kraken]

Excellent ideas, Alphawolf and Oda. Many of my ideas were the same last night. I took away all airlift ability first of all. I added the following units to have the scenario make more sense:

[The unit in paranthesis is the graphic used from the PtW WWII units pack and the Pacific War scenario]

Information reference: "Pacific War" Scenario setup booklet by Victory Games. "The Pacific War" by John Costello.

Dutch Infantry (Infantry): Relatively weak (4/4) These units would be added to the map as green to show equipment, training, and size.

Chinese Infantry (Russian Infantry): Quite weak (4/3). Draft Unit for Chinese. Chinese infantry were notorious for not being able to (or willing) to hold ground.

Communits Chinese Infantry (Russian Infantry): Quite Strong (6/6). These were highly motivated and well trained troops able to attack as well as defend well.

Commonwealth Infantry (British Rifleman): Medium ability (5/5). British equipped and trained. Pressed into service from commonwealth nations. Draft unit for Commonwealth.

Japanese Division (Japanese Rifleman): Medium ability (5/5). Normally trained units. Japanese divisions were some of the biggest units in the Pacific by far. +3 Hit points but start green or regular.

Japanese Crack Division (Jap Rflmn): High ability (8/7). Several divisions at the start of hostilities were hardened by war and highly trained, equiped and motivated. These would include the 18th, 38th, 19th, 20th, and a couple more. These units are very costly to build (would take half the scenario).

The Nipponese Infantry represents the normal infantry brigades employed by Japan and are relatively good units (6/5).

Allied Fighter (P-51): This is the starting weak, short ranged aircraft that represents the poor state of the Allies air forces in the beginning (3/2)r:5 b:3 These are scenario start units only. The F4F and Fighter are the buildable normal quality air units. Exception: F4F range reduced to 4. These aircraft had really short legs.

F6F Hellcat (F4F): (5/5) Stronger, faster, and heavier armored, these planes marked the end of the Zero. Advanced Flight.

George: (FW190) This outstanding interceptor came too little too late for the Japanese, but were toe-to-toe as good as American fighters. Although possessing very short range, they highly capable. (6/4) r: 3

Zeke: (Zero) This later war improvement (A6M8) on the original (A6M2), was faster, more nimble and better armed. Unfortunately, to achieve that, almost all armor was sacrificed. (6/2)

Carrier Bomber (Sturmovick): This unit is used to represent the torpedo and dive bomber aircraft employed on carriers for Allies and Japan. Japan (1/2) r:8 b:12 Stealth Attack ships. Allies: (1/2) r:5 b:10 Stealth Attack ships. (Plan to exclude Bombers and Heavy Bombers from transferring to carriers.)

Advanced Carrier Bomber (Sturmovick): Later war, more powerful, better protected dive/torpedo bomber. Advanced Flight.

Japanese Battleship: (15/12) Japanese battleships were, for the most part, weaker than Allied ships due to naval treaty restrictions.

Yamato Battleship: (20/18) b: 14.2.2 You have to have this in the game. Commissioned at the beginning of '42, this unit starts green on the northern most island away from the fight. Musashi was commissioned in the spring. She was near completion and has been added to the game also.

Japanese Cruiser: Although typically possessing fewer and smaller guns than Allied cruisers, the Japanese had the venerable "Long-lance" torpedo and were highly skilled in its use. In addition, Japanese navy men were highly trained in spotting and night engagements. (12/12)

Iowa Battleship: (20/16) b: 12.2.2 The superb finale of American development, these "fast battleships" could keep up with carriers and possessed the latest range finding and radar equipment.


That's it for now. I will probably be tweaking the numbers. I'm in the process of adding this stuff into my game. I will also take the suggestion of reducing many of the bases from cities down to just airfields. Unfortunately harbor cannot be added without cities.

Also, I accidentally added the improvements to the MP version instead of the SP version and I didn't want to start over. Does anyone know the difference between the two?

--CK

 

[Colonel Kraken]

Oh, and I also added some Japanese ships that were strangely missing:

BBs Nagato, Mutsu, Yamashiro, Fuso, Ise, and Hyuga. These along with a couple CLs and DDs (represented by one Destroyer), and CVLs Shoho, Zuiho, and CVE Taiyo (represented by one Japanese Carrier) start in the southern most port on the Japanese main island.

 

[alpha wolf 64]

Colonel, I assume the weak fighter that you speak of is the P-40 not the P-51.

I forgot about the Taiyo. I also changed the Ryujo to a CVL. I didnt add a CL class because the AI already seems to only build few unit types, and I dont see a niche for them to fill between DD and CA.

I'm wondering if China needs to be split into 2 civs, Nationalists(?) and Communists, that are both at war with Japan but not allied together.

I think I want to remove the MGs because they are out of place. I'd also like to add more buildings that produce units such as a boot camp, a sub pen, a carrier shipyard. One extravagance I added was the Hornet task group in the lower right corner. Even tho they didnt come thru the Canal until Feb, I added them because the Hornet was important early in the war and its starting location gives it many options but wont have an immediate impact. I added Wall Street to compensate for the removal of so many airports from the US. I made slight changes to govs and to victory conditions. I havent added any new unit graphics yet, so you should be able to use it without any other files.

I like alot of Colonels changes as they are very similar to those i have been debating. Altho I intend to keep no more than 2 units for each type, (off or def). The AI just hasnt shown the ability to differentiate between too many unit types. We need to figure out how to get the Chinese to build defensive units as all I ever see them build is the best offensive unit they can, then they are sent piecemeal into Japanese strongholds.

I wonder if we should start a WW2 moddification thread? And I'll try to figure out how to upload a file because I never have before.

 

[Lyonesse]

Nice to see someone wanting to add the "Hornet"...great "boat" ...now all you need it "Doolittle's Raider's"

Looks like y'all are making GREAT progress on this sen. though...hats off to all of you!

 

[Rocoteh]

As Colonel Kraken already have pointed out 6 out 10
Japanese Battleships for some reason have been left out.

Also: U.S. Battleships California and West Virginia (Pearl Harbor)
Colorado (U.S. West Coast) have been left out.

Edit: Thus with regard to BB and BC each unit now
represents:

1 Japanese Battleship unit = 2,5 Battleships
1 U.S. Battleship unit = 1,5 Battleships
1 U.K. Battleship unit = 1 Battleship (Repulse was a Battlecruiser)

It would be interesting to know why the scenario creators
choosed this solution.

Rocoteh

 

[alpha wolf 64]

The list of CA left out of both sides was staggerring. I think they may have left the Japanese BB out because those ships saw limited action during the entire war and were mostly based near Japan for defense. I also put them all in near the island formerly named Iwo, but now just an airfield.

I split the bombers into cv-based and B-17/Betty types. I gave the B-17/Betty a transport of 1 so they cant land on carriers any more. I wondered what would happen if I started the scenario with 2 "B-17s" on the Hornet, whether they would immediately die because the carrier cant hold them, or whether they would die after the first use because they cant return to the carrier. If the game chooses the second option, then we really could have a Doolittle raid type Hornet. Just one of the many ideas I havent had time yet to try.

 

[Colonel Kraken]

Originally posted by alpha wolf 64
Colonel, I assume the weak fighter that you speak of is the P-40 not the P-51.

What I meant was, if you read the comment about the planes in () above, that they are merely the graphic I used to represent that plane. Since it is not used for anything else anyway, the P-51 looks generic enough to use for the Allied Fighter.

What I decided to do is make sure I use only existing graphics from the game. This way, once my mod of the scenario is complete, anyone (who has Conquests/PtW) can merely download the scenario without having to get any units from CFC Units forum. Now, for my personal mod, I will certainly download some units, but for mass production I'll merely use existing graphics.



And, from my other question: does anyone still know if there is really any difference between the MP and SP version of the scenarios?

 

[Colonel Kraken]

I think we all have very similar ideas, and that's good. Lot's of good stuff here. Together, we all can make some very nice changes to the scenario. The key would be not to overwhelm the scenario with too much detail. That's why adding things like CLs, which were used as support vessels in non-descript duties (not to mention that both sides built few of them), would just not make sense for this scenario.

I can understand combining some vessels into one, or, as I and some others have done, make weaker versions of the same ship to represent different types (e.g. my Japapnese Battleship).

Originally posted by alpha wolf 64
The list of CA left out of both sides was staggerring. I

This is probably another example of what I just said, combining units to fit into the scale of the scenario --which kind of makes sense. I doubt it makes sense to have individual cruisers. Capital ships yes, cruisers or smaller, no.

Originally posted by alpha wolf 64

I like alot of Colonels changes as they are very similar to those i have been debating. Altho I intend to keep no more than 2 units for each type, (off or def). The AI just hasnt shown the ability to differentiate between too many unit types.

This is a good point. However, a lot of the units I added were merely designed to give realistic start units. These units are typically to expensive to build in the course of the scenario, so the more standard units will be built instead.

Definitely some good stuff here. It's going to take me some time to modify the initial placement of everything, but I'm well on my way.

I definitely look forward to more ideas in this thread.

Thanks,

CK